Cneiff's stone

Cneiff's stone tells an interesting bit of Kaskinen's history. Johan David Cneiff (1722–1791) was a shepherd and carved his life story in Latin into this rock in 1784.

Cneiff had a large sheep farm here. However, when the town of Kaskinen was founded in 1785 he had to give up his rights to a large part of his estate. People in Kaskinen thought for centuries that the words in the stone were a curse. It was widely assumed Cneiff was so bitter about the loss of his land that he had written "May Kaskinen not prosper or develop in the coming 100 years". Locals could not speak Latin, alas the myth stayed. A priest as late as 1860 went to read the text and was able to resolve the mystery.